Double Red Rainbow

Double Red Rainbow

When the sun hits the horizon, the shorter blue and green waves of light are filtered out creating spectacular warm orange and red sunrises and sunsets. If the atmosphere has sufficient moisture, or vapor droplets in the air, sunlight shining on it will refract when it enters the droplet, then reflect off the back of the droplet, and refract again as it leaves the droplet. This splits up the light into many different angles, forming a rainbow, from shortest wavelengths on the inside (blues) to longest wavelengths on the outside (reds). If the light reflects off the raindrops a second time, a second rainbow can be seen which is fainter and portrays the colors in reverse. But with double red rainbows, since the blues are already filtered out due to the low sun angle, only the red hues remain and result in a red rainbow with the second rainbow being fainter and mirror imaged.